all tied up…

This is a fine bottle of bitters. It seems like it should wear a fine set of togs.

The knots on this bottle are:

The lid is improved in both looks and function with a Spanish Ring knot, done is white paracord.

The neck of the bottle is covered in a black Turk’s Head of 9 Leads X 4 Bights, doubled.

The shoulders are done in a bi-color Pineapple knot. The base Turk’s Head is a 5 Lead X 9 Bight knot.

Below this is a 3 strand grommet in black paracord. This knot also bears the Chinese Button knot.

The first knot on the body of the bottle is a 5 Lead X 4 Bight Turk’s Head, doubled in white paracord. The edges of the knot are worked to show a straight edge rather than the normal lobes. This is the edge treatment that Bruce Grant uses in his “Colima Lazy-Man Button”.

The main knot on this piece is a Pineapple interweave, done on an 11 Lead X 10 Bight Turk’s Head. The bi-color weave makes this a handsome knot.

The black ring around the bottom of the bottle is a Turk’s Head knot of 5 Leads X 14 Bights, in black paracord.

Remember, if you like the bottles there are many of them covered in earlier posts that were not numbered, just named.

All these knots taken as a whole make this bottle stand out in a line of knot-covered bottles.

Thank you for stopping by my site. The parade of knots keeps marching on. Come back and see the next change. If you can think of any way to improve either my site, or my knots, please let me know. It will be greatly appreciated:
William

This is a particularly tall, thin, medicine bottle. Because of this, it gives a different proportion to the knots. It was nice having a chance to try something decidedly unusual.

The knots are:

The lid is ringed with a Spanish Ring knot, of 1 pass, in black paracord. This makes the lid wider by about 50%, and increases the gripping friction.

The central knot is a green Turk’s Head, with a black Herringbone interweave. The base knot was of 9 Leads X 8 Bights. Both knots were done in the now infamous paracord.

The bottom knot is a Gaucho knot done in bi-color paracord. It looks so much thinner because the cord was gutted first.

All of this made a very thin bottle easier to hold, and open. I realize that child-proof tops serve a purpose. I dislike the fact that their major side effect is to be adult-resistant.

I greatly appreciate you coming to see my parade of knots. If you have any suggestions on how I can make your visits better, let me know. I am, after all, here to put on this show for your pleasure / edification. Wave the next time you see me marching past:
William

This is a landmark for my blog. This is the 100th post, with over 6,100 views, and climbing. It is very gratifying that so many others are interested in seeing my knots.

To mark the occasion I am returning to the same type of knots I used in my first post. This is medicine bottle #16.

The knots used are:

The main knot is a Herringbone interweave, of 14 Leads X 13 Bights, in black paracord.

The white ring is a Spanish Ring knot, done in a white utility cord just thinner than paracord.

The black ring on the bottom is a Turk’s Head, of 3 Leads X 13 Bights, also in paracord.

I would like to give a special thanks to all my readers on this special day. As always, if you have any thoughtful suggestions on how I can improve either my site or my knotting skills, I would greatly appreciate hearing them. See you again at the parade:
William

This one doesn’t belong to the 6 pack of inexpensive ones I bought as gifts. This is one we got for our own use about 10 years ago. It being of standard manufacture, the handle was relatively thin. Me being of larger than average hand size, I wasn’t satisfied with that. Besides, it was the perfect excuse to tie some knots on it. This thing has seen steady use for just over 10 years, as have the knots. I am sometimes amazed at how well paracord stands up to use.

The knots are:

First I covered almost the full length of the handle with a 15 Lead X 2 Bight Turk’s Head. This knot was tripled in 2 colors of paracord — in a green — white — green pattern.

The butt end of it then got a white Turk’s Head, of 4 Leads X 3 Bights, tripled. This wasn’t large enough to fill the hollow of my hand. To make it larger, I followed this with a green Turk’s Head of the same structure.

To dress the other end, and to provide a raised area to brace my thumb on, I tied a Spanish Ring knot.

The photo was just taken this week, and shows it as it is. After ten years of wear and handling, it is fascinating to see how little wear there is. It gives me confidence in the things I make today out of paracord. It seems they shall live long enough to repay the effort I put into them.

As usual, if you see some way I can improve either my knotting skills, or my site, I would greatly appreciate hearing about them. Thank you for stopping in to see my parade of knots. Come back again:
William

First I would like to thank Irving Drink for visiting my site, and especially for leaving a comment. It took a while to answer because I had real-world things to do, then I had to tie the knots and take the photographs. I will try to make it worth the wait.

The bracelets on the Internet fall into two broad categories. One is the Nantucket / Sailor’s / Pirate’s bracelet. The Nantucket name is used mostly in the northeast seaside states. In the south and down island, or any of the warm vacation spots south of the U.S., the customary name is a Sailor bracelet. In places where there were more surfers, it was called a Surfer’s bracelet. Thanks to the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies it is now picking up the name of Pirate’s bracelet. I grew up in south Florida and the rule was — “whatever separates the gringos from the green”. You call it whatever ups the chance that they will buy it. They are usually made out of cotton cord, and are typically a Turk’s Head knot of 3 passes. The bight count (the number of lobes around the sides) varies with the wrist size. This one is very small, but serves as an example. You pre-tie an assortment of sizes and fit them to the customer at purchase.

Turk's Head Knot Of 3 Passes X 8 Bights

The other bracelets are the ones popular on outdoor sportsman / survival web sites. These are usually made of square knotting. The theory is that in the woods, if you need some cord in an emergency, you unravel the bracelet to get the needed length. The cord used to tie the visible square knots is about five times the length of the knotting. So if you have a ten inch wrist, you get about fifty inches of cord. You can use the filler cords to reattach your watch, or whatever it held. The straight flat bar is called the “Solomon’s Bar” in “Ashley’s Book of Knots”. On knot sites this is considered the ultimate reference book on knots. You will see knots referred to as something like — “ABOK #2496” — the number for the Solomon Bar.

A short length of Solomon's Bar, white paracord over green fillers.

Because the sellers have to compete in a crowded market, they have to come up with new names or knots to sell. Some people are also more sophisticated buyers, because the grew up with friendship bracelets. They have seen some better knots, and expect better knots. The following pix are of four strand sinnets (braids) that are starting to show up at vacation spots. The first two are flat sinnets, with the difference being how the colors were arranged at the start. The second two sinnets are round / square sinnets with the same color starts.

A short length of 4 strand flat sinnet, with a bi-color diagonal stripe pattern.

A short length of 4 strand flat sinnet, with a bi-color pattern in which the color skips to the other side after two tucks.

A short length of 4 strand round sinnet, with a bi-color spiral pattern.

A short length of 4 strand round sinnet with a bi-color vertical stripe pattern.

This picture is of a sinnet that is starting to show up on the net. Ashley refers to it as a “three strand plat”, ABOK # 2961. It is made from two cords acting as stationary fillers, and a third that weaves over these in a figure eight motion. It has a lot more body than it seems it should. Because there are no individual knots to tie, it makes up fast — but you have to hold it securely while working, or it will un-make almost as fast.

A short length of Three Part Plat.

To learn how to make the one of your choice, some of the knot sites in my links list have tutorials. The “Instructables” site has several tutorials on various bracelets and other knotting subjects. Many of the tutorials from other sites have migrated there. You should note that some of the knotting sites presume a fair amount of knot knowledge. The “Instructables” site assumes a lower skill level.

I have been toying with the idea of putting up some tutorials on things that aren’t already covered on the net. I don’t see any need to re-plow a field, but there are gaps in the coverage. If you can’t find a tutorial that teaches you what you need to know, drop me a line. Tell me which bracelet or knot you are interested in, and I will see about putting up a tutorial. If you are having a problem using an existing tutorial, it would help if you told me where the mis-step is. I could then be sure to give more explicit coverage to that part of the lesson.

Here are some links to sites that have tutorials covering the bracelets discussed:

“Instructables”: They have a very broad coverage because they act as a library for lessons produced by many people. This include some of those below, like the next link to Stormdrane’s site.

“Stormdrane”: This is one of the older sites in the outdoors-man type of knots. He has an excellent site and gives brief tutorials if a project introduces a new form of knot which hasn’t been covered.
“Knot Heads World Wide”: KHWW has an extensive forum. There is also a gallery and an assortment of tutorials. They do expect a certain level of knowledge, but reward that prior work with excellent advancement built on that knowledge.

“The Pineapple Knot Forum”: This is a site populated by a very knowledgeable crowd. They are also a friendly and helpful bunch of folks.

“Alaska Museum Of Fancy Knots”: This is an old URL; this site is the seed form which the “Pineapple Knot Forum” grew. People I have sent here have been both happy and successful with it. This link is directly to a very good tutorial on the “Nantucket Bracelet”.

If you are still with me you deserve special thanks. I hope this longer than normal post has helped. If there is anything that I need to do better / differently let me know. To hear is — well … to at least take it under consideration — to seriously think about obeying. See you next time:
William

I ran across something on the net about homemade Christmas Ornaments. It reminded me of this test piece I made to see if an open weave Turk’s Head would make a good base for ornaments / gifts. My thought was to use the open end of the knot to frame a decoration. The knot itself could act as a hanger. The open weave in a fancy cord, and over a contrasting fancy base color would provide the basic structure. After I had made this piece, it occurred to me that the base could be decorated to fit almost any occasion: Halloween, a birthday balloon, or whatever you need that month. This knot was made over a tennis ball — it’s fuzzy, and holds the cord well. The fact that it can flex allows you to work the knot more easily than on a wooden ball. To top all this off tennis balls are inexpensive — or free if you know a player. The better they play, the more often they retire balls. The Turk’s Head I used was an 11 Lead X 10 Bight knot; it worked well. The test seems to have proven the idea. Now if only I could think of a gift occasion that would be appropriate for giving a tennis ball in bondage — I already have one all tricked out.

Thank you for coming by my site. I will get back to more serious knotted things now, I promise. See you at the next parade day:
William

After the unscheduled knotting study of yesterday, I thought I would put up one of my simpler projects. Mind you, it fills a practical need every day as opposed to one-use hats. So in a way it is of greater import to the world … or at least my world.

Today’s project is a key fob that is used only to hang an extra key from a hidden ring in our cabinetry. It only holds one key because we don’t want to have to go digging for the one key that rules them all in an emergency. Just take the one ring you need and no extras. This makes it easier / safer to grab it at a time that might be trying. Say little Jenny’s gotten caught in the hay baler and is going up the shoot. You need the one key … you need the only key … you don’t need the wrong key … you don’t need 13 extra keys, that you must try one after the other …only to find out you have the wrong batch of keys. The one key that doesn’t rule them all, but will kill the hay baler. So for this, a small one-key fob, that is easy to hang the key on its ring, a fob that easily buttons onto and off of the ring. Now it may not be the flashiest key fob in the world … but in my world function always aces form. If I can have both, I take both … but if I can have only one, I’ll take function every time. This is a simple key fob that works. I took a length of paracord and doubled it. Having left a short length to form a loop, I tied a Chinese button knot, single. I then left a short length of 2 strands to form the part which held the key and the wall ring. I tied a 2 strand Matthew Walker knot, doubled, leaving a short space for the loop to fit into. The last knot was another Chinese Button knot, doubled. I left the long tails on the last button knot so you could use them to help get the button through the loop. This is a great help, because when the button knot is in the loop there is no slack, it just fits with friction on all sides.If this were carried in your pocket / purse it wouldn’t do. Eventually the key would work its way out. Hanging on a ring inside a cabinet door, it is fine.

As always I await your comments. All thoughtful ideas to make better knots, or a better knot site are appreciated. See you next time at the parade:
William